1. Field
Example embodiments of the following description relate to an apparatus and method for coding and decoding a depth image.
2. Description of the Related Art
A stereoscopic image refers to a 3-dimensional (3D) image that supplies shape information on both depth and space of an image. Whereas a stereo image merely supplies images of different views to left and right eyes of a viewer, respectively, the stereoscopic image is seen as if viewed from different directions as a viewer varies his or her point of view. Therefore, images taken from many different views are necessary for generation of the stereoscopic image. The images of different views may be applied to various fields including a free viewpoint television (TV), a 3D TV, and the like. The free viewpoint TV acquires and analyzes multiview images with respect to one scene, thereby freely varying viewpoints of an object. The 3D TV provides the viewer with a realistic 3D depth impression by supplying different images to the left and right eyes. However, since the images of different views have a great amount of data, it is very difficult to code and transmit the images in consideration of the network infrastructure, a terrestrial bandwidth, and the like.
Therefore, instead of coding and transmitting all video data having many different views, a depth image may be produced. When the depth image is coded and transmitted along with images of only part of the many different views, data size for coding may be reduced. The depth image expresses a distance between an object and a viewer in a color image by values from 0 to 255. Therefore, the depth image has similar characteristics to the color image. However, since the depth image is different from the color image, that is the depth image is flat, there is a demand for a more efficient coding method for the depth image.